Interviewing a Tomb Raider
by okh-eshivar
Summary: What if Lara and Sam never met in Uni, and Lara became who she was in the old games before they meet? Sam's only task is to get an interview from the illusive Duchess of Abbington, Lady Lara Croft, and what was meant to be a simple job quickly turns into something else entirely.
1. Chapter 1

Jesus, this place is fucking huge.

I wave Alex over to me from the van and check the aperture setting on his camera, fiddling with the adjuster knob on the top of it to get the perfect light exposure. "You brought the HX too, right?"

"Of course," he says, wiping the lens of his glasses on the hem of his raglan. "I'm sure this place gets plenty of natural light. It looks big enough to be called a castle! Did you call Ms. Croft again?"

"I tried," I grimace, brushing a strand of hair out of my eyes. "I just got her assistant again, telling me 'Ms. Croft doesn't communicate with the press', all that garbage."

He looks at me incredulously. "What are we doing here then?"

"Well, we aren't the press are we?" Like hell I'll ever call myself press. I'm a documentarian, and camera wiz, and a troublemaker. But press? Yeah, right. Three weeks ago I applied for a job on a crew for The History Channel and they told me that if I could get an interview with this woman, this introverted, apparently loaded British chick named Lara Croft, then I'd get the spot no questions asked. And considering my past run ins with the authorities, I could really do without a hard eye on my police records.

When they said she was rich, they didn't tell me how rich. They barely told me anything about her, and the reason they gave is that no one really knew too much in detail. Only that she'd uncovered some of the most unbelievably valuable and rare relics and artifacts, that she had a penchant for being both reckless and incredibly careful (whatever that means), and she is, as they put it, arguably one of the most interesting and unique individuals in the entire world.

And she'd refused all of the eight different interviews they'd requested from her. None of them even got the opportunity to speak to her directly, just an older man named Winston who always simply stated that she was unavailable for comment.

I zip the camera up in its nylon carrying bag and pray that there's a room in this place that has good enough natural light, because there's no way I could sneak in that kind of equipment, too.

"Alex, sometimes you've gotta show a little tooth to get what you want. Now keep the setup out of sight for now. I'm gonna get us in."

He looked back at the van nervously before following me up the grand outdoor stairway that led to the main doors.

The doorbell chimes from the inside.

We wait many minutes before ringing it a second time.

"What's taking them? A place like this has to have a pretty big staff."

"Maybe they're all getting coffee?"

I glare at him and sigh loudly, ringing the bell for a third time. The door creaks. I shuffle into flawless posture, folding my hands together in front of me. I can already taste that crew position, and the mere thought of getting on the team gives me immediate butterflies.

A pretty big black guy in a white t-shirt and jeans opens the gigantic door and blinks at the afternoon sunlight. "Um," he says unsurely. "Hello?"

I stare blankly at him in a confused way and look back to Alex, who shrugs at me. "Hi. Um, my name is Sam, I called Lara earlier and told her I was coming over. I'm her cousin."

He looks me up and down and for a second I'm actually kind of scared. I really didn't think she'd have security. I mean, she's just an old, rich shutin, right? I swallow hard but maintain my smile.

"You don't look like anyone Lara would be related to." I blink at him. I guess Ms. Croft isn't Asian, then. Is that my cosmic payback for being instinctively intimidated by the black guy?

"Second cousin. Twice removed. We were pretty close when we were kids." I give him my most award-winning grin. He studies me skeptically for another moment, hums an acknowledgement, and opens the door wider to let us in. The inside of the foyer is like something out of a fairytale, with a walk in fireplace at one end and tall, tall ceiling that opened into stone-laced windows, a second level with stone pillars reaching to cradle the space delicately, and a grand staircase that split two ways halfway up. The floors are marble and the entire space has an air of complete grace.

"Sorry, Winston probably just forgot to let Lara know you were coming. He's getting pretty up there." He holds his hand out in front of him. "My name's Zip. I'm Lara's field handler."

Field Handler? What kind of archeologist needs a field handler? I clear my throat and take his hand firmly. "It's nice to meet you, Zip. Oh, and this is my boyfriend, Alex. He's here for the visit." Alex sputters in a very obvious way behind me and I laugh inwardly to myself.

"Good to meet you, both. Lara's in the middle of her workout right now, you know her. Hey, let me show you around. Unless you've seen it all already?"

"No," I insist, "I'm sure a lot has changed around here since my last visit. Please do."

He tucks his hands in his pockets and gestures for us to follow. When he turns his back to us, I look over my shoulder to Alex and give him a wink and a thumbs up. He's pretty flustered, but he fakes a thumbs up back and keeps the camera bag close to his side.

After a few display rooms, an Olympic-sized indoor swimming pool, three libraries and a dusty staff kitchen, the manor starts to feel eerily empty. I hesitate to ask questions, but my curiosity gets the best of me. "Um, is there faculty here, or…?"

"Oh, yeah, well back in the day there definitely was. But after Lara's parents died and the estate was handed to her, most of them bounced. No one wants to deal with a staff of fifty when the boss is an eleven year old girl, you know?"

I make an acknowledging sound and take my notepad from my pocket. Orphaned at eleven and given this whole thing? Interesting…

He leads us into a back corner of the west wing and opens a pair of heavy double doors; on the other side, a gymnastics gym the size of a football field gleamed with dignity. This is her work out area? Was she some sort of James Bond character that needed to know how to somersault over deathtraps or something. All of this strangeness is making me giddy with excitement. Oh, the potential here is off the charts!

"She should be almost done…Lara?" he calls; his deep voice echoes. Silence, then loud bumps, like padding being compressed. We follow the noise around a series of obstacle courses. She's here, I can feel it. The air is getting heavier by the moment. My heart thumps against my ribs in anticipation. Just one interview, and my whole world will change forever.

I run into Zip's back, too preoccupied with my own glee to realized he'd stopped in front of me. He turns, puts his fingers to his lips and points up. I watch his hand quizzically and look.

Above us, suspended in a perfect handstand on a rung of what I can only describe as extreme monkey bars, is a young woman, decorated with muscle and adorned with a very long, golden brown plait. She remains there, completely still, for thirty whole seconds, before her legs split apart; one droops over her head and the other counter-balances her in the opposite direction. Her form is absolutely flawless.

Oh, how I wish I could pull out my analog and snap some action shots now; but giving us away would put the potential for an interview out the window for sure.

After another twenty seconds she exhales softly and drops both of her legs over her head, slipping through the narrow opening between the rung and landing cat-like on her feet in front of us.

"Form's perfect even with those stitchs," Zip laughs, "You're getting a little too used to that, huh?"

She turns, and I swear in all my life I've never seen anyone, even with my mother being a model and my father being a mogul, as heart stoppingly beautiful. I nearly swallow my tongue when she parts her lips, which are, may I say, full and pink and very kissable. She laughs quietly and wipes her forehead with the white hand towel tucked into the hem of her skin-tight biking shorts. My eyes wander to her exposed abdomen, rich with peaks and valleys of tone, and up her rather generous breasts that were contained in a strained sports bra, before her voice pulls me back to my senses.

Her accent punctuates her beauty. "I'm going to pop them tonight, I think." She rotates her hips to the side to brandish a long line of stitches across her obliques. "They're starting to itch a bit."

My head is spinning. How would someone this drop-dead gorgeous get a nasty wound like that? A paper cut gone wrong? I turn to Alex for an explanation, but he's too busy catching flies with his open mouth.

"Oh," Zip says, extending an arm to us. "Your cousin is here to visit. Apparently she called the Winston forgot to mention it. Sam, you said your name was?"

Then, she looks at me, and I'm pretty my heart stops for a good five seconds. Her gaze is so deep and heavy and level that I'm tempted to turn heel and run out of there. She narrows her brown eyes at me before her expression softens. This woman is the archeologist Lara Croft?

"Sam, my dear. It's been so long. How have you been?" She puts a hand on my shoulder and I instantly know that she could crush my collarbone just by squeezing; my instincts are telling me she's dangerous, very dangerous, part in due to the fact that she obviously didn't have a Portuguese-Japanese cousin named Sam.

"Uhm," I stutter, faltering under her absolutely radiating presence. She gives me a ghost of a smile; it makes me feel like a rat in the sights of a viper. She knows I'm not who I say I am. Isn't this the part where I beg her to give me the interview and not call the police?

"Come now, we'll go to a quiet place and we'll catch up." I'm stiff as she and Zip lead us out of the workout room and back into the hallway. "Thank you for taking care of them, Zip. I know you and Alister are still working on decrypting the coding on the Salisbury megaliths for me."

"No problem, L.C. The algorithm's already done, I'm just waiting on Vyme's files now."

She makes a face and crosses her arms over her chest. "I loathe working with that man, utterly. When all of this is over, I might just end him the same way I ended Aulgood."

Alex nudges me and mouths a sentence, gesturing his words. "What the hell is going on?"

"I have no idea," I admit, trying to steady my breathing. I point at the woman in front of us. "That's her. Can you believe it?"

"Definitely not what I was expecting."  
-

She pours me a cup of tea and leans against the window, letting her silk robe roll over her strong shoulders and pool at her feet elegantly. It's tied loosely at her waist, though the weight of the material is giving me a view right between her breasts. Not that I'm complaining.

"Forgive me for making your friend stay outside. I prefer this take place one on one." She brushes the fabric from her upper thigh to reveal a hunting knife mounted there. A pair of round, red sunglasses mask those powerful eyes now, and I am thankful for it. The sight of the weapon makes me cringe visibly. What the hell did I sign up for?

Her expression remains flat and impassive. 'So tell me, . Should I kill you now, or dare I give you time to explain yourself?"

A bolt of lightning blasts through my stomach, a shot of adrenaline filled panic. I stutter indignantly, "I-I I'm sorry, Ms. Croft. I shouldn't have-"

"No, you shouldn't have." *She saunters to me, slowly, and leans against the back of my chair, breathing down on the top of my head. "Who sent you then, love? Vymes? One of Aulgood's men? A pretty girl like yourself, did they think I would let you walk in and out with a camera, find the ins and outs of the manor?"

I'm confused, and scared, and I'm sure it's getting pretty obvious. My foot taps rapidly against the fine rugged hardwood floor, my knee bouncing up and down in progress. "Ms. Croft, I-I don't know anything about, um, any of that. I'm here for History? I'm, I'm here to do an interview."

"I've not approved of any such thing, and I have no interest in any interview."

"Yeah, ah, you made that pretty clear, or your, uhm, old friend made that pretty clear over the phone."

She scrutinizes me silently, like a wolf deciding whether a fight with a deer would be worth its trouble in meat. "Yes…" I don't think she intended it, but the word sounds more like a purr slipping between her lips. I find myself watching them intensely; I don't think I've ever seen a pair of lips so perfectly sculpted in my life.

Okay, so I consider myself pretty straight. I mean, if I'm drunk, stuff might happen, and I can appreciate a good fuck regardless of who's giving it, but when she exhales and pulls away I get a view down the front of her robe between her breasts and every nerve between my navel and my thighs just goes crazy. I feel myself watching her mouth as she talks, and her legs as the pillowy fabric separates between her steps. The way her eyelids hang at half-mast, peering brown irises thick with disinterest, is giving me some pretty serious anxiety.

"I…uhm…" I stutter indignantly, her long plait hanging off her sharp shoulder blades, giving me a sticky tongue. "I don't know about any…Vymes or Aulgood, but-"

"I believe you, Samantha. I don't make a habit of revealing my weaknesses to my enemies. It would be…upsetting, if you were part of their schemings."

Weaknesses? "So…will you let me record you for an interview?"

"Absolutely not," is her immediate response. My chest falls.

"Please," I beg, beside myself. "I need this. I…I really need this job, Ms. Croft. They told me the only way I'd get on the team is if I got an interview with you." I probably sound pretty pathetic , but I really do need this. I'm sick of being a fucking disappoint, sick of bumming couches off of friends and eating instant ramen and working bullshit minimum wage jobs. "You…You have everything," I mutter, burying my face in my hands. "Just give me this, okay? Just give me this."

"Everything?" I hear her say quietly. "No. I have many things that do not matter to me." I look up, and find her watching the window with a furrowed brow.

"Well, give me your mansion and we'll call it even, I guess."

At this she laughs to herself, pulling the corners of her lips up in a smile that could make a heart stop. She hums to herself, and the robe drops to her ankles. Beneath it, miles of hard muscle and long, slender limbs hang, a perfectly sculpted back and waist, hourglass hips cradled by black underwear, and scars. Many scars, of many shapes and lengths and widths and weights. My face goes hot instantly. Jesus, where the hell did this woman come from?

She turns, stepping from the puddle of silk at her feet, and saunters to the other end of the room in search a wide closet, making my presence inconsequential to her clothing process. I would hide my face, if I was even a cell more a prude. Instead, I took mental pictures. She pulls on shorts and wraps her generous chest in a tight sports bra, leaving them to run over the top of it just slightly, and slips a see-through button down over her shoulders. Jesus.

Lara Croft holds out her hand to me with an indecipherable expression, and I take it without a question.

"Come. I will show you all of my secrets."


	2. Chapter 2

_Prelude_

She walks in a very particular way, like a brick wall is baring down in front of her, and she is a wrecking ball that could blast through it without a second glance. She walks like the whole world stands in her way, but she knows she could crush them under the weight of her heel. She walks like death is smiling at her, and she's smiling right back. She walks alone, uncontested by her solitude, content with the barren hallways and the empty staff rooms and the silence of the open foyer. With the portraits staring with dead eyes and the piles of ancient books stacked in the corners of every room. She is alone, but not lonely, or maybe resigned to singularity.

Around them, the manor stands rigid, and lifeless. The marble colonnades are static against the coffered ceiling in the main galley, and the pathways winding and weaving through the architecture are breathless and still, beside themselves. Windows remain shut to the rest of the population, tall cherry wood doors remain closed. And within the insides of this dead beast, Lara Croft paces its ribs and polishes its skeleton and orchestrates its swan song with the gentle tapping of her bare feet against hard, cold marble bone. She lives inside the sarcophagi of her expired past, her father, her mother, whom she blamed herself wholly for, her treacherous lovers and her betrayed friends and her own heart, heavy as weighted steel and diamond. Regret is not in her nature. But perhaps in her farthest recesses she wished the beginning of herself hadn't stripped her of it.

I already know that I shouldn't be here. I already know that whatever it is that I was thinking of doing, sneaking into the Manor of Lara Croft and teasing an interview out of her, was pretty illegal by itself. But this entire place has a quietly haunted air to it that's making me feel like I should pull a heel turn and book out. It's like walking around in…in a….alright, for lack of a better word, a tomb. It's impeccably clean and remarkably decorated, but empty, and still.

The Duchess leads me through hallways Zip had shown us through before, and then passed them, into halls behind bookshelves and locked doors and dormouses. Into rooms that breathe on their own.

"I know what the press likes to portray me as," she says as we approach a wall of brick at the end of the series of false tunnels. The way had turned dark, and medieval, our only light being that of oil torches tethered to the walls. I get the feeling that they've been here much longer than the rest of the manor has.

"I'm not press," I say quickly, despite myself. She razes the surface of the stone with her fingertips and pushes a single one in; it creaks expectantly and lets out a series of mechanical clicks.

"Yes, well. That changes very little now, doesn't it?" The wall responds to her beckoning and slides back with massive strained sound; she slips around it with little difficulty. I follow her into the darkness and immediately wish I hadn't.

The door slides shut behind me, and I'm surrounded with blackness. Dark, and something else. Something alive, I can feel it in my guts and behind my eyes and in my brain. This is not an empty room. Desperately I reach out for her, for something familiar. My fingers catch the soft silk of her button down and hold it tight.

A limb wraps around my shoulders and I shriek in response. "Calm down," she says in a whisper; I'm relieved to feel the arm belongs to her. As intimidating as she is, it's hard to feel threatened by anything else when she's around. She walks me a long distance through the darkness, and still I have that horribly eerie feeling that we're being watched, sized up.

We stop, and I'm panicking. I don't want to stop in here. I don't want whatever's following us to catch up. I pull closer to her and shudder, whispering, "Let's go, let's go," flustered.

A light flickers above us, and the thing I couldn't see with the lights off disappears.

We're in a room of glass cases, and inside each was an artifact of some kind, or at least that's what I can assume. Ancient weapons hang proudly, mounted with silvery chains, from the walls; scepters and swords and staffs and tridents and things I can't identify on sight all stare back at us with old, blind eyes.

"What is all this?" I ask quietly, that malicious presence still hanging in the air.

"Possessed objects, mostly weapons of some kind. Pieces I couldn't rightly leave out in the world."

Possessed? I narrow my eyes at the objects suspiciously. Things couldn't actually be possessed. There's no such thing as ghosts or spirits or any of that nonsense, right? The air carries the scent of fire and burning rubble and I'm just about ready to leave now.

"They like to say that these relics were meant for museums, and that I am doing society a selfish disservice by keeping them on my estate. They don't believe that objects can be angry, or vengeful, or evil. Or dangerous." She looks down at me, standing four inches taller and much more confident. "What do you think, Ms. Nishimura?"

"I…" Shaking my head, I search for the words. Possessed…I've been talking to this woman for an hour at most and suddenly she's prying at my entire worldview. Evil. That was a good word for describing the energy in here. Even with the lights on, I can't bring myself to let go of her. If I let go, if her and I become separate entities in the eyes of whatever's watching us, I'll be dead for sure.

The opposite wall slides away the same way the other one did, and we're out. I let go of her strong arm and take a step forward. "Whatever's in there," I mutter, "I'm glad it's staying there."

She looks mildly pleased with my response. "We don't have to go back that way, do we?"

"No," she replies, lighting the torches on the walls. "I wouldn't fancy that myself."

We walk through another series of rooms, many of which were strangely configured. The Scion fragments need to be kept separated, she narrates. This key opens the Armory of Themopolis. The Ankh of Osiris can be used to resurrect the dead, but with unforeseeable consequences. She tells me stories of events and people and places that existed far beyond our reach, all accompanied with the artifacts to prove her tales. I listen dumbfounded as she tells me how she's died before, many times in fact, and gone to a different place every time. Once, to an Egyptian underworld, where a pharaoh tried to bride her for spoils. Once, to Avalon, where a God-Queen tried to end the world. Once, to a sacred high place where all of the Gods in the Universe told her she wasn't welcome. Once, where a woman with black wings gave her a small stone and a sword and banished her.

She holds the Black Mandala in front of her and it quivers between her fingers. She hooks Thor's Gauntlets to the backs of her hands and they with bright blue light. She holds Excaliber in a vice grip and it whines like tempered glass.

My eyes couldn't be any wider. This collection, this could change the way everyone in the world saw everything! She could prove afterlife, she could bring the dead back to life, she could open wormholes and portals and other dimensions, if everything she said was true.

But is it?

She places the King Arthur's sword back on its ivory stand.

"If you won't let me do a report," I say hesitantly. "Why did you bring me here?"

Croft remains motionless, her back to me, for a long moment before she sheathes the blade and turns. "I enjoy your tenacity, Nishimura. But for all that I've shown you, do you really think anyone out there would believe a word of it? These are all myths to them. But you can feel it, can't you?" She exhales and walks to the other end of the room; I follow her without question. "These 'trinkets' and 'falsities' and 'legends', they're alive. Bloody hell, they have emotions and memories and intelligence. If these were fantasies, they would be empty, the way a kitchen knife is, or a fake skull. But they have substance that is beyond what we can comprehend. I'm at peace with that. But the rest of the world is not."

She's saying they aren't ready. Hell, I sure as hell wasn't, and under other circumstances, I'd laugh, tell her she's crazy and I'd be done with all this. Honestly I don't know what's stopping me from doing just that.

My doubt must be obvious because she sighs, and opens the next door. "Alright, Miss Nishimura. I will show you something that will make you understand."

Her steps towards the only fixture in this room, a golden bowl held on a white marble pedestal, are calculated and quietly, as if she'd suddenly entered a sacred place. Tentatively, she dips her hands into the bowl, the water bending the shifting around them, murmuring something to herself as she does. As she pulls her hands out, the liquid slides from them in an unnatural way and they emerge, bone dry. She instructs me to do the same and, my curiosity at its highest, I do. The water isn't water, it's alive, crawling, like maggots in a hoard. I try to jerk away but she holds them under, muttering again in a language that I'm sure has been dead for a long time.

A suddenly, my mind is open. I see the doorways of Hell and the shifting sands of ancient deserts and I see Gods fighting each other for some of the very pieces in the rooms before. I see my ancestors, I see the Queen my grandfather used to tell me stories about and her army, her stormguard, marching in her honor. I see oceans and empires and dynasties rise and fall and rise again. I see Atlantis and Themopolis sink into the sea.

I see my dead grandparents, rosy cheeked and dressed in purple satin robes.

When I come back to the world, I'm crying and Miss Croft is the only thing keeping me from collapsing. "I shouldn't be here," I sob, beside myself. "What did you do to me?"

"I showed you," she whispers, helping me to the cold floor to sit.

"No one else can ever see this." She nods in agreement. "Wars will start. People will freak out."

"I know," she says evenly.

"You were right to never do those interviews. Everyone would think you were completely fucking crazy."

"I know."

After a while of trying to absorb everything I just saw, I swallow hard and attempt to pull myself to my feet. Her hand is cool to the touch when she helps me up. "Sorry," I sniffle, wiping my face dry.

"Don't be. I reacted different my first time, but only because I'd already known the supernatural exists. I could have shown you something similar with the Scion, but the Well of Life's water is a bit more gentle."

God, this is all insane. Only, it isn't. It's real. She's real. And for the first time in my life I feel significant. I feel like I'm part of something important, something greater than myself.

"Thank you," I mutter. I don't think she hears me, but it's just as well.

When we come back up to the manor, the air smells different, fresher, I guess.

"Shall we have tea?"

I shiver, and nod.

_a/n: Getting pretty deep into Tomb Raider lore with this one. Hope everyone still enjoys it :)_


	3. Chapter 3

I honestly didn't realize that 'tea' was English for dinner, so when Lady Croft brings me into a sunny greenhouse area with a small table decorated with expensive looking food, wine and dishware, I'm taken aback.

Zip is already there with Alex, and both of them are chatting away about the best optimizer for their desktops, or something equivalently nerdy. She circles the table and pulls out the chair on the right-most corner, beckoning me to her. The gesture almost makes me blush; who told her she could be so gentlemanly for chrissakes? Not even the guys I've dated in the past pull out my chairs for me. I sit down hesitantly, and she takes the chair at the head of the table to my right, pouring herself a flue of Cabernet and filling mine as well. I drain it immediately.

"It's a pleasant diversion of the norm, to have company," she says, sipping the rim of the flue delicately. "Even if they _are_ liars." She makes hard, direct eye contact at Alex when she adds this and he nearly chokes on his booze. I hold back my awkward laugh. Somewhere in my mind I can feel that vision still lurking, and it makes me want to drink more, so I fill my glass again and take my time with it.

Alex and Zip continue talking amongst themselves busily. As I watch them, a strong hand presses against my shoulder.

"You're on-edge, Miss Nishimura." It's not a question, but a statement. I felt as if I couldn't lie to her, or that I just shouldn't. Her raw presence is really something to behold.

"Why am I here, Lady Croft?" I ask quietly. She quirks her brow at me and turns the corner of her mouth up.

"Because you snuck in." I can tell by her tone that she knows that's not what I mean. After a moment she sighs and leans back in her chair.

"I suppose… it's because I want you here."

Her answer startles me. "Why?" I reply incredulously.

Her rich brown eyes turn to the glass ceiling. "Maybe it's because I'm bored. My instincts are telling me to have you stay, though I can't say why. But my instincts have never been wrong."

Her face remains unreadable as she speaks. "There something very familiar about you."

"You've probably seen my mugshot around somewhere." I take a fat chunk of pink meat from the silver dish in the center of the table; the sight of how tender it is makes me instantly hungry, despite my stomach still having knots from the tunnels. It's perfectly cooked and is juicy enough to melt in my mouth.

"Damn, this is really good," I say between bites. She smiles and raises her glass in Zip's direction; he gives us a seated bow.

"You cook, too?" Alex says. "Field handler, bodyguard, and cook?"

Lara laughs. "Bodyguard? He couldn't shoot in a straight line if his bloody life depended on it."

"Please," he contests, "And you couldn't cook a bowl of Instant Ramen to save yours."

"Touche." She fills her flue a second time and takes her share of meat, picking the reddest of the pieces. It bleeds as she sets it on her plate.

"I guess it would be fair to give her credit for catching the damn thing. I did the actual cooking though."

"Catching?" I look at her as she takes a bite, satisfied with its quality. "The estate covers many acres of land," Lady Croft explains, "I would rather hunt my food than buy it wrapped in plastic and dyed."

Wow. If I was actually doing the interview I think History would skip the crummy internship and just appoint me to CEO right then and there. I can honestly say with ease that I've never wanted to know more about a person than right now.

"Are you all finished, Miss?" An deep, older sounding voice spooked me from behind. I turn to see an elderly man with a tray of dirty dishes balanced on his shoulder. "May I take your plate?"

Oh my god. Is this her butler or something? Does she have a butler, too? I stare at him dumbly for like five whole seconds before he just takes my dish without another question. He circles around collecting, ending at Lady Croft. She smiles and hands him her silverware.

"Thank you, Winston."

"Of course, Lady Croft. Will your bags require emptying, or filling, may I ask?"

"Don't bother yourself," she replies quickly. "I have a charter booked for the Himalayas in the morning, I need to collect my gear before then."

"Very good, Ma'am." He bows his head at the rest of us and `disappears through the glass doors. He seemed pretty frail to be carrying all of those dishes by himself.

"The Himalayas?" I turn to her; she's already on her feet, pulling her plait to rest over her shoulder. I imagine her hair out of its grip, splayed over her neck and hard stomach and-

I shake my head. What's getting into me lately? I really need to get laid or something.

"I've got an appointment with Shangri-La," she winks casually, strolling off into the greenery. I nearly stumble over myself in my rush to follow her. "Shangri-La? Is that some kind of metaphor or something?"

"No," she responds coolly, stepping over spruces with bare feet. "Shangri-La is real. I've been there before, a handful of years ago on the eastern side of the mountains. I thought perhaps they were just hallucinations, but I've reason to believe the entrance will open again, soon. I want to be there when it happens."

"But…Shangri-La is a myth, isn't it?" I say confusedly.

"Myths almost always bare some form of truth. Someone very important once taught me that." Her face darkens for a moment, as if she's seized by an unpleasant memory. "Shangri-La is told to be a Utopia, a perfect world within itself where people don't age and time doesn't exist. Where war and famine and suffering have never been known. A place of unending tranquility." She strokes a stray hair from her face, and murmurs under her breath. "Maybe I'll find my peace there."

I dig in my brain for memory of the story, another story that my grandmother used to tell me before she passed a few years ago. "But…doesn't it only open, like, once every century or something? Once you go in, you can't get out type of deal?"

"That's right. The first time was a mistake; even I'm not sure how I managed it. But this time, the doorway will open."

"And you'll be trapped for a hundred years?"

"Perhaps," she muses. "It's meant to be a place you never want to leave. Maybe it's where I'm destined to go."

Hearing her say that makes my heart fall into my stomach, and I don't think it's for the sake of the interview. I really don't know why my insides get all twisted at the idea of her leaving and never coming back; I'd just met her, and she maybe traumatized me in her creepy haunted basement an hour ago, but the thought of never seeing her or hearing her voice again makes me feel sick.

"Wait, what about the manor? What about all this?" I gesture my arms out wide at everything around us. "You want to just leave all of this behind? There are people who would kill for your life!"

"Those people wouldn't know a single thing about my life, if they were willing to take it. Let the remnants of my family fight over the Croft fortune; I never wished to carry its burden."`

"Well-" I start. "Well, what if I go with you?"

What? She looks at me with an expression I haven't seen on her yet. What did I just say?

"Are you daft? Do you have any archeological experience?"

"Well…no."

"Mountain climbing experience? Gear? Sherpa connections?"

"…No."

"Surely you see the problem here, Miss Nishimura."

"It's Sam," I say, angry for no real reason. "It's Sam, and I think it's really shitty that you're willing to just leave everything behind so you can go fulfill some…'destiny', or whatever."

She puts her hands on her hips and scoffs. "What business is it of yours?" She sounds amused more than insulted, and that makes me madder.

"I just-" I stutter, my face getting hot suddenly. "I just…I don't want you to disappear, okay?"

The bemused smirk on her lips falls slowly into a neutral line, and her eyes widen for just a second. "Look.." she responds languidly after some pretty awkward silence, "If you want, I'll give you a few quotes. I'm sure that would be enough to-"

"It's not about the interview, dammit." You make me feel important, I want to say. You make me feel like I matter. I feel as if we were supposed to meet sooner, like something went wrong and now we're strangers but we aren't supposed to be. I feel like if I'd known you before, it would have changed me so much that I wouldn't be the wreck I am now. She says she's going, and I feel like I'm the one getting left behind.

"What about Zip?" I say, trying to distract her from my obviously confused inner clamouring. "What happens to him?"

"I've made it clear to him that in the rather likely event of my death or disappearance on the job, he would be granted a severance check that would be enough to raise his children and his children's children."

God, she talks so mechanically about her own life! In the likely event? It's like she's totally okay with the idea of dying.

She inhales evenly and continues her trek, leading me through the indoor jungle and onto a broad marble-white balcony drenched in sunlight. Leaning against the columned rail, she crosses her ankles and faces me, red lips quirked. "Tell me about yourself then, Sam." My name sounds too good in that accent.

"What do you want to know," I reply gruffly, not set on letting her off so easy.

"You can start by telling me who the gentleman you brought in really is."

"Oh." I scratch behind my ear and look away from her. "He's just a friend who I knew would help me."

"Help you break into my home."

"…Yeah."

She's got that amused air about her again, though her facial expression changes very little. "Very well then. Now, why do you need this…interview so much that you were willing to do so?"

I cross my arms over my chest and look to the ground between my feet. After a handful of moments I collect myself enough to answer.

"I'm sick of being a burden. I want to be something. I want to feel like I matter. I dug myself a hole so deep in school, with the police and with my family and with people in general. I just…I didn't have anyone who ever thought I was anything more than a problem child. A mistake. No one ever listened to me or respected me, or looked out for me. I'm a burden on my parents, and I know it. They don't even really talk to me anymore. Last time I got in trouble with the cops, they didn't even bother coming to the station; they just paid them off remotely and got me off the hook."

I take a deep breath and look up to her, half-expecting a bored or regretful expression. But still, just very little obvious reaction. It makes me want to tell her more; she isn't judging me. At least not from what I can tell.

"The only one who still cared was my grandmother. I remember…she used to spend hours telling me stories, about our ancestors. Stories that got me through my childhood. I mean, they couldn't have been real, but..hearing that we had the same blood as, as 'Queen Himiko'," I laugh at the idea. Himiko. What a joke. "It made me feel more significant, I guess."

"What?" I turn back to Lady Croft, and for once she's like an open book. She looks totally beside herself.

"Huh?" Did I say something weird?

"Did you say Queen Himiko? As in, the Sun Queen?" She speaks urgently, stepping closer fast. Her swiftness makes me back up in surprise. "The Sun Queen of Yamatai?"

"Yeah..?" She cups her long fingers over her mouth and creases her eyebrows together tighter. "What? What's wrong?" Her eyes pinch closed before she shoots back through the greenhouse, grabbing the crook of my arm and nearly knocking me over. Before I know it, we're in a dusty library in the far corner of the manor. I ask a lot of questions, but get nothing back; she's too busy shuffling through piles of papers and books, searching for something. In a couple of minutes it seems that she finds what she's looking for.

She thrusts an old, burned paper in my face. On it, there's a white outline of a woman surging with power, suspended between a cloud of storms and ferocious ocean waves at her feet. "These one, here? Is this your Himiko?"

"I-I think so, yeah." A queen with the ability to create storms. It looks like it could be a picture of her. Lady Croft is staring at me intensely when she withdraws the image, as if she's trying to convince herself that I'm lying. Again she dives into the pile of paper, this time coming away with a dirty old notebook with a leather binding and the name 'Mathias' scribbled in pen on the cover. She opens it, scans it, and pulls out a photograph of a shipping crew; it's worn and slightly yellowed on the edges, so it was maybe eight or ten years old. Her eyes stay fixated on it for a long time before she rubs her forehead tiredly between her thumb and forefinger.

"I suppose Shangri-La is going to have to wait."


	4. Chapter 4

We sit in the foyer for a long time, and we talk. By the crackling fireplace she pours tea for us; she makes mine just right without me even telling her what I like. Honey and cream. The fire spits glowing flireflies into the mantle as she tells me stories, like my grandmother used to.

Her voice is so warm and low in the darkness that I feel like I could fall asleep to it. The hot cup in my fingers and the ten-thousand thread count blanket on my shoulders keep me comfortable as she tells me a particular story that she says no one's ever heard before.

Only three people know this one, she says quietly, her tone grim. I'm going to tell you about Queen Himiko, and her Stormguard. And the lost island of Yamatai. I'm going to tell you what really happened.

She tells me about many deaths, from the beginning. About how she and her mother, Amelia Croft, crashed into snow covered mountains in Asia, how she disappeared in Avalon and died. She tells me about her father, Richard Croft, and how he was murdered by an ageless woman who later manipulated and tortured her. And she tells me about the man who taught her how to live on after without anyone's help.

Conrad Roth. She doesn't ever reference him as her father, or a father figure, but I see it in her eyes. They light up as she speaks of him; it makes me smile. I like seeing her that way.

Then there's a boat. A ship. And a crew. She shows me pictures, like the one in the journal labeled 'Mathias'. She's always the youngest one in the group, 20 years old, but she looked so happy amongst them. There are pictures of her mapping sea courses with a dirty looking old guy named Grimm, and of her reading histories with a man called Von Croy, and of her chatting with a husky, dark skinned cook named Jonah. There's a white haired man who instantly gives me the creeps, a tv host I remember from back in the day, James Whitman. And an unfriendly looking engineer named Josilin Reyes. All of them were at least in their mid-thirties.

Then, she tells me about the storm.

The ship cracks in half, and the ocean swallows it.

And spits them out on the island of Yamatai.

The name sends familiar shivers down my spine. She tells me of her nauseating fear, and how in just a few hours it got a hundred times worse. Bodies. Blood. I imagine Lady Croft shoving an arrow into Whitman's throat as she recalls the endeavor in vivid detail; he'd attempted to hold her hostage, to turn her over to the enemy, and he'd not known his mistake until he was gone.

"My first kill," she narrates. "And scores after my last." My insides knot, and somehow I still don't hate her for it. He shouldn't have taken me, she says. Had it been one of the others, it would have motivated her, maybe, to save them, to save the others.

But then, Roth was killed. And the shit hit the fan.

Up until this point, her tale had been described in colorful detail. But now, she speaks quickly and choppily and I can tell she's snipping parts of the story out. She shakes and tightens her body up like a wind up toy, taut and spring-loaded, and I collect her every word as it spills from her lips.

I wanted to kill them all. I had _nothing_ left, she recounts with bated breath. I want to make them suffer.

So she turned into a predator. She hunted them, until she got her way to the top, an insane cult leader named Mathias, the man who'd killed the last people on earth who cared for her, by proxy. He bargained for his life though, by revealing Lara's suspicions about the storms to be correct; that they were supernatural, and even if he and every one of his men were dead, they wouldn't cease. He led her to the source, and as she went to destroy it, he turned on her.

Bullets. My eyes drift slowly down her body, down to the raised scar on her side; I'd thought earlier that it looked a lot like she'd been impaled. I feel my lips part in hesitation. I wanted to touch her, she's so fixated on the fire in the mantle that I probably could have and she wouldn't have noticed.

I finished Mathias, she shakes her head. And lit fire to the Sun Queen's temple. Her body went up in the flames, and the clouds just…parted.

She leans back into the plush couch and covers her eyes with the flat of her palm, and stays like that for a long time; she looks worn with a lifetime's worth of exhaustion by the time she's finished. I watch her silently, and against my better judgment I lift my left arm and drape my blanket around her shoulders. She startles in a small way, hints at a smile, and relaxes.

"I'm sorry," I whisper.

"You should be afraid, Miss Nishimura."

"Sam," I correct her, contemplating her words before very, very lightly resting my head against her strong shoulder to illustrate my point. She tenses, but doesn't move away.

"You…must be lonely."

She says nothing, but sighs tiredly and closes her eyes.

"So…Himiko was real?"

"Yes," she replies. "I couldn't believe it either; I'd seen the supernatural before, in the mountains that took my mother, but nothing so…tangible."

"And I'm actually related to her?" That was a funny and disturbing thought.

"Well, that I can't confirm," she breathes. "But if you are, I'm glad you weren't there with me."

My focus wanders to her hands in her lap; they're scarred, with nails cut short and long fingers thin and lean. "Why's that?"

"You would have been the perfect sacrifice. Mathias was looking for anyone of Asian descent to bring directly to the ritual where Himiko would choose a new host. Or something of that sort." She looks at her palms. "I'd no reason to fully understand what Mathias thought he was doing. After Roth was killed, I had a one track mind."

"I wish you would share this story with everyone," I mumble. She deserved to be respected and recognized for all of this. "I wish you'd let me…"

"No, Miss Ni- Sam. That place is evil, and it needs to be forgotten. Like the weapons in the cellar. Many would think I was mad, an attention monger, and the rest would question. They would rent boats and ships and they would sail to find answers. It's better off left in myth."

I think on her words for a while as she fixates again on the random patterns of the fire.

"It's late," she ponders. I look to the gilded grandfather clock in the corner. Two am. A yawn tickles at the back of my throat, but I subdue it.

"You going to bed?" The question seems invasive leaving my mouth for some reason.

"I don't sleep unless I can't avoid it," she muses. "I need to take a look at some maps I think." I lift my head up and she stands, stretching tall as she does. Her long muscles tense and display like peacock feathers and her silk button falls from her shoulders as she drops her arms back to her sides.

"What a lovely little mystery we have." She gathers a blanket from the far side of the mantelpiece and brings it to me. "You should rest. I'd imagine you've many things to think on."

"You're letting me stay?"

"Better here with my secrets than out there." She wears a bitter smile with her words, and my chest heats like an oven. I reach out as her hand leaves the blanket next to me and I grab her wrist tight. Her eyes flash then, viper's eyes that gleam at the hint of a threat before striking back. I speak before I'm struck.

"I told you," I say sternly. "I'm not a liar. I won't tell anyone, Lara."

She seems to startle at the use of her first name rather than the formal I'd been using.

After a moment she pulls away gently and turns her back to me, going off towards the labyrinthine hallways with her head held with a dignity I think I'd be crushed under if I had to carry. I watch her disappear behind the heavy mahogany door; she glances back at me for a moment, eyes and face unreadable as they always are, before she slips away and the door closes with a soft 'click'.

I spend the rest of my time awake listening to the crackling of the burning wood and the empty groan of the old manor as it shifts rigidly with the wind outside.


	5. Chapter 5

I'm woken up by the overwhelming amount of daylight that comes through the clean glass of the foyer windows. The clock dings at seven in the morning and I'm disappointed that I'm not in my own shitty bed, sleeping off a hangover instead of trying to forget that now I know that there's an afterlife and it might be filled with giant killer eagles and crazy pharaohs. I rub my eyes and pull the soft blanket closer stubbornly, set on resisting the urge to break every pane of glass in this room.

"Sam!" The voice is pleasant and disturbingly out of character. I groan and sit up, combing my messy black hair down with my fingers.

"Huh?"

"Sam," Lara says again excitedly, rounding the couch with an armful of old books and loose leaf pages. "This is brilliant. Wake up and look at this."

I squint out the harsh marble-reflected sunlight and take a good look at her; my brain knows she probably didn't get a single second of sleep but I'm amazed by how well her body takes the harsh treatment, because she doesn't look even a little tired. Still tall, dark and gorgeous. Jealousy tickles my gut.

She drops the stack of information on the long coffee table in front of me and spreads it out, picking at bookmarks and dog eared sheets of yellowed parchment to display. Almost all of it is in languages I don't even recognize.

I'm too tired, and too confused to even say a thing.

Lara looks at me expectantly, biting her bottom lip, then back down at her handiwork before making a realized sound in her throat. "Oh, you probably can't make heads or tails of any of this."

"Nope," I yawn, slumping forward.

She hands me a white mug with something in it; I drank so much tea yesterday that the thought of it aches.

"Um, do you have any…?"

"Coffee? That is coffee." She shuffles the papers around and circles a couple of lines of text in a paragraph written in Farsi.

"Oh." I sip it slowly. Coffee, with cream and sugar. "How did you…?"

"Can't see why you Americans love your coffee so much. Me, I can't stand the stuff. Zip drinks it, too. Too much of it, if you ask me." Alright, I can sort of tell she's been awake for a while now; she's much more talkative than yesterday.

"Right, so," I clear my throat and give my eyes a good rub. "What's all this?"

"It's your family tree." She puts her hands on her hips and gives me a smile.

I look at her blankly again and she sighs. "I collecting some information on your lineage to see if your bloodline could be traced back to Yamatai."

"But…Yamatai isn't real." She gives me a hard glare and I fluster trying to correct myself. "I-I mean, to most of the world it isn't real."

"Yes," she shakes her head cryptically. "So I had to narrow it down to area in or around the Dragon's Triangle."

"What did you find?"

"Something absolutely fascinating." Her eyes glimmered at me with curiosity. My stomach is struck with nervous butterflies. "Samantha Nishimura, your blood was in Okinawa centuries ago, and part of your family was struck from the histories during that time. Okinawa is the closest established city to the Dragon's Triangle, during the era where the island of Yamatai was said to disappear beneath the storms."

She looked quite pleased with herself. "You wouldn't believe how difficult it is the trace migrations feudally. I had to exercise the majority of my presidential passes in the London libraries just to get passed the 1400s wall." Her hand grips the nape of her neck as she rolls it to the side, stretching. "You have some very royal ties, Sam. I'm impressed."

I can't get over the lively sparkle in her features; I've never seen anyone who could even rival her beauty, especially like this. I felt like I was looking at the fucking sun. My face heats up under her gaze.

"S-So, the stories were true? I'm related to some kind of superhero queen?"

"I wouldn't call her a superhero." Her face immediately darkens. "She sacrificed young girls to pass her soul from vessel to vessel, but yes. You very well could be."

"Oh, um. My grandmother must have left that part out," I mumble, itching the back of my ear awkwardly. She hums to herself and collects the assortment of research carefully.

"A curiosity, nothing more. I thought perhaps you'd be interested to know." I just barely catch the tinge of disappointment in her tone; was she…?

"Wait," I mutter. "Show me?"

She blinks at me, and smiles slowly.

I listen, even though most of what she says goes right over my head. I savor the way her lips wrap around the syllables of a variety of languages, how she gesticulates her long arms and fingers in emphasis, the warm, salty edge of her tone. My 6th uncle the swordsmith, my twenty second cousin, who conquered empires in the times of dynasties, my long distant aunt, who gave born to eighteen girls and no boys. I should be concerned that my entire family history could be collected from the London libraries, but instead I'm enthralled in her storytelling, her voice, her curiosity, her beauty. She lifts her left arm in a gesture and I see those scars again, scattered and content with their homes.

Her tale is interrupted when Zip leans against the back of the couch and waves a glass of something in front of her. "Hey, you can't just leave this out, Lara. You'll get sick again."

She rolls her eyes exasperatedly and takes it from him. "Yes mum," she mocks, downing the light orange concoction in one go.

"You know, if you want eggs I can cook 'em for you first."

"Where's the character in that?" she muses, setting the glass down away from the papers and wiping her lips delicately. "Can't be bothered."

He rounds the table and looks down at the spread with a curious expression. "Is this the stuff Vymes sent over?"

"Fuck Vymes," she says far too eloquently. I have to look away when the word 'fuck' in that accent settles heavily in my lap. "I'm a step from sealing the Lusitania's location away. I've a bad feeling about all of that; we both know that man's disgusting reputation. He could do with a slap."

"Easy, Lara," he says nervously. "You know what that guy could do to us. He's dangerous-"

"Zip, I single-handedly overwhelmed the Yakuza when Takamoto wouldn't concede to my demands." She laces her digits in her bangs. "_I'm_ dangerous."

"Right," he shrugs defeatedly and gestures at the mess. "And all this? Side project?"

"Well, Zip, it turns out that you are in the presence of royalty."

"No shit," he laughs.

"Not me, you arse," she glowers fakely and waves her arm to me in a presentational way. "Samantha here is a direct descendant to the Queen of Yamatai. Himiko, the Sun Queen."

His snarky smile falls instantly. "What?" His tone lowers to a near whisper as he addresses her directly. "She knows about Yamatai?"

"Yes," she breathes. "Yes, she does. It's alright."

He straightens himself and clears his throat. "Okay, if you say so. Do you need anything before I get to work?"

"The second stone of the Pantheon frieze and the Sword of Perseus. Chop, chop," she says straight faced, snapping her fingers and giving him a faux-impatient gaze. He rolls his eyes at her.

"Yeah, yeah. Well, you know where I'll be if you need me."

"Cheers," she says coolly. He gives us a backwards wave and disappears around the corner.

"Really?" I grimace, glaring at the empty glass. "Raw eggs?"

"Protein," she states simply.

"Cooked eggs have protein too," I tease, beside myself. I'm nervous of how she'd react, but she gives me a fox-like grin and murmurs, "I only do it now because the first time he saw me try it he nearly ate backwards."

I nearly spit all over myself; I was definitely not prepared for a joke to come out of her during this century. She chuckles, covering her mouth as I let out a laugh that echoes against the hard marble room.

She tosses her head back and unwraps her loose plait, shaking out her waist-long hair before containing it in a low hanging tie. I immediately want to tangle my fingers in it.

"Did you want something to eat?" She asks gently, standing up from the leather pillows. I yawn and join her, dropping the blanket messily.

"I could honestly go for something sugary and full of calories," I chuckle. "None of that raw protein nonsense please."

She bites her bottom lip and gives me a matter-of-fact smile. "Oh, I have the perfect solution." She saunters confidently into the hallway and I follow eagerly, warmed by our exchange. She feels like a friend already, like someone I need in my life, and that's honestly a little terrifying. "Have you ever had Jaffa Cakes?"

I watch the windows as they glimmer with the light of day and notice that some of them have been pushed open, filling the walk with the scent of fresh rain.

The hallway explodes in front of us.

_A/N: If you haven't noticed I hardcore ship Lara/ Zip bromance. No regrets~ As always, reviews make my day :)_


	6. Chapter 6

"-am!"

My ears are ringing so loud inside my skull I can't hear anything else. Ringing, and white, washed out vision. Distantly, I can make out someone yelling something and the pattering of a thunderstorm. A dark shape begins to form in front of me, vague and hazed. Something takes hold of my arms and I'm too out of it to react.

"-am. Samantha!" It's her. Even blurry and half-together I can tell it's her. "Samantha, you have to calm down. Breathe." She waits a second for me to respond, but my body is stiff and tense with shock. The ground leaves my back and I'm pressed closely to her chest as she lifts me and takes off down to the opposite end of the hallway, dodging toppled columns. I can hear her heart beating . Despite the sudden dark situation, its pattern is even and slow, and it calms me enough to regain control of my arms and legs.

She kneels behind a tall marble piece of debris and lets me pull away from her, peering over into the direction of the explosion.

"W-What's going on?" I whisper shakily, trying my best to calm myself. She's so unbelievably passive that for a moment I think maybe something not-so-bad happened, an accident, a faulty water pipe burst or something like that. But then I hear shouting. Gruff, male voices yelling lines of orders at each other. Lara's eyes narrow tightly at the chaos and she touches the sides of her thighs, making an unsatisfied noise when her hands find nothing there but the hunting blade she'd sort-of threatened me with yesterday.

"Bugger," she mouths, sinking behind our cover. "I knew that bastard couldn't be trusted."

"What?" I nearly shout. "Holy shit, I just almost fucking got blown up! We need to get out of here."

"No," she says coolly. "If they get their hands on what they want it's going to be a big hassle."

"A hassle?" I grit incredulously. "Our being dead is gonna be a pretty big hassle, Lara!"

"Calm down," she glares at me. I purse my lips and shut my mouth tight. "They're looking for the Lusitania coordinates."

"So, let them have it."

"No. Vymes knew I wouldn't be willing to give them up after figuring out what he was actually looking for ."

"Jesus, couldn't he have just looked up the coordinates himself on Google or something? The Lusitania's not even a myth!"

"Well, he didn't exactly ask for the Lusitania. He asked for the coordinates to the Shield of Perseus. He doesn't know that they are one in the same." She reaches into her front and pulls a small golden vial from between her breasts. "The Shield is said to be adorned with the head of Medusa. Regardless of the truth behind that, it's without a doubt a powerful weapon. He can't possess it."

"Well, there's about ten guys out there with guns who'd like to say otherwise."

"We'll see about that," she glowers, stands up, and whistles as loud as she can between two fingers. I nearly have a heart attack right there.

"What the hell are you doing?!" I curse, grabbing the waistline of her shorts and trying to pull her back behind cover.

"Hello, gentleman!" She muses, cupping a hand over the outside of her mouth. "You wouldn't happen to be looking for this, would you?" In her fingers she waves the vial back and forth like a useless piece of junk. I'm too scared shitless to take a look over the pillar myself, but a moment after she speaks, thunderous footsteps storm down in our direction. Lara does a heel turn and breaks into a swift run around the corner and down into the foyer, and the rest follow like cattle, yelling at her and each other. Not a single one bothers to look down; they're so close as they pass me I could stick my foot out and trip them.

After a minute of distant noise, I peak out. There's a gaping hole leading outside where the wall of the hallway used to be, but no sign of any people. I stand up, heart pounding. I can't believe that just happened. Holy shit. I look around frantically and breathe one even breath, then two, and find my way to the foyer.

Still no one. She must have led them into the bowels of the manor, areas that she knew well but they didn't. Areas where one wrong step would mean getting crushed by a sliding door or being possessed by some kind of evil spirit. I bound for the front door and grab the gold leaf handle tightly. One more step, and I'm done with all this. She led them away to distract them from me. She's giving me the chance to get the hell out of here.

I pause.

No, she can take care of herself. She's, like a superhero or something, right?

I shake my head and make a frustrated noise. Come on! You're right there!

I back away from the door and clutch at the sides of my head, breathing as evenly as I can and letting out a stream of 'okay's. Alright, calm down. Calm down. Lara's here somewhere was a crapload of guys with guns and knives and shit who probably wouldn't have a problem cutting the coordinates out of her cold, dead hands. I can't leave her, I can't. I don't know why, but I just can't. But what can I do?

I look to the hall that leads to the underground. What if something went wrong? What if she's in trouble?

No, she can't be in trouble. She's Lara Croft. She could probably just glare at them and they'd all fall over dead.

…Right?

Hesitantly, I walk to the pathway down.

I'm only at the second tunnel when I see the first dead body. I throw up almost immediately. He's caught between a stone cast and the hard brick of the wall, his chest cavity caved in under his Kevlar. I wipe the nervous sweat from my forehead and swallow hard, resisting the urge to look at him again, and take the giant gun from the ground next to his body; it's heavy as shit and I have no idea how to use it, but having it makes me feel a little better.

I pass two more bodies without studying them, without even looking at them completely. I don't want to see.

When I get to the stone wall that I know leads into the possessed objects room, I stop. It's pushed back and open, and there's slivers of light coming from the edges of the slipthroughs. From inside, I can hear men. Cautiously, I slip around the corner and peer inside.

The lights are all on, as I thought, which already isn't a good sign; I'm far enough in to see but not be seen. There's a circle of the remaining men in the center of the room, and between them Lara is kneeling on the ground. Two men are holding her arms back and another is standing directly in front of her. I can tell they've roughed her up already; her lip and nose are bloodied, and it makes my stomach turn and twist in anger. She's still wearing that cold, humorless smile.

"One more time, Croft."

"Piss off."

He backhands her across the cheek hard enough to make me gasp sharply with dread. She spits a mouthful of blood to the side and looks up at her assaulter.

"My, you should really take a girl to dinner first before you try to ruffle her feathers."

"We can do this all day, Miss Croft."

"Please," she says with a crimson grin. "Call me Lara."

He doesn't seem entertained. "Give us the real coordinates, Croft!" He waves the golden vial in her face. "There's nothing written on this!"

"Oh, dear." She looks genuinely apologetic for a second. "I must have left them in my other trousers."

I can't believe she's fucking being coy with these guys right now. I step outside of the situation for a moment and examine the room, evaluating my options and trying to resist just crying and curling up in the fetal position. Okay…what happened last time I was in this room? The lights were off, and the doors were both closed. And the presence was here. I shiver at its memory; that thing that I couldn't see but could feel in my brain, whispering and growling and stalking.

The big guy puts his gun to her forehead and presses, forcing her head back. "Can't say it's been a pleasure, Croft. Guess you're just lucky I like blondes."

"What?" she mutters, still with that deadpan smile. "You don't think I'm pretty?"

The opposite door is already shut behind them. I narrow my eyes.

Wait. That was her plan! She lured them all here, but they caught her before…

His gun cocks, and she closes her eyes.

And my gun goes off. The shot catches him right in the shoulder at the edge of his Kevlar breastplate. He shouts out, and right before I hit the lights and shut the door behind me I catch Lara's shocked expression through the guy's legs as he topples over. She shouts at me as everything goes dark,

"Shut your eyes, Sam!"

I crush myself into the corner and I do. But the noises are enough. Bones crunching and men screaming like children. Hysterical laughter and pleas for mercy. I can feel them again, all of them, all around. I cover my head and wait for the screaming to stop.

I reach for the lights again, and one of them lumbers in front of me, sizing up. I keep my eyes closed, but I know it's there, with flesh between its teeth. I can smell its breath, rancid and rotted out, and just it lunges I yell and spring forward, smashing my palm into the light trigger.

And everything stops. Artificial lights flood in impassively, and all that's left are the uniforms and weapons and clothing that once held human bodies. No blood or limbs or heads rolling across the floor like I'd expected. Just…nothing.

Lara.

I rush over to her, dropping the gun with a heavy 'clang', and dive to a kneel where she is, laying on her side with her back to me. She's got three long claw marks stretching across the entire length of her scapulas and I'm struck with ferocious anxiety.

"Lara, Lara," I mutter over and over, grabbing her shoulder and rolling her over, resting her head on my lap.

She groans in a strained way and wipes the blood out of her eyes.

"What were you thinking?" she says hoarsely. "You could have gotten yourself killed."

"I know you aren't lecturing me right now," I retort. She turns over and lets out another mouthful of blood. "I-I think those things got you."

"Yes, they did. And you?"

"Almost, but I'm okay."

"Well, I suppose I'm a little more guilty than you are, Sam. They feed on the sins humans have committed in the past. The Maya actually thought that-"

"Lara," I interrupt.

She clears her throat and wipes the red off her lips. "Sorry."

I stroke her bangs out of her face; her lip is split and her cheekbone is cut open, and she's got a deep gash on her eyebrow, but she still looks good. "You okay?"

"Better than those men," she snorts, glancing over at the empty clothing strone all over. "Thank you for taking care of the vial."

"Huh?" I look at her quizzically.

Silently, she reaches behind me and sinks her fingers into my back pocket. From it she pulls another golden vial; she's wearing that clever expression again.

"You reverse- pickpocketed me up there?" I take the object from her grasp and blush furiously. "I can't believe you!"

"Didn't even notice, did you?" She looks right and proud of herself, despite being beaten bloody.

"Yeah, you're real sneaky. Can we get out of here now, please?"

She sits up with a groan and pushes herself to her feet, looking not even a tiny bit less confident. "I hope Zip and your friend are alright up there."

,


	7. Chapter 7

"You told that guy to piss off."

She glances at me with a glimmer in her eye and she looks away after a moment, grinning at the stairs we're climbing.

"I did."

My heart, still pumping lukewarm adrenaline, skips a beat at her informal response. My legs are still shaking from the chaos, and ever since we left that cursed room I've refused to move more than a few feet from her side. She seemed just a bit slower than before; still lightyears ahead of me physically, but the wounds on her back and the beating she'd taken from the mercs have taken her usual, untouchable mystique and convulted it in a tired way, like rusted steel. Still hard, still unbreakable, but more real, I guess. Up until this point she'd seemed like a myth herself.

"That was so badass," I gleam, squeezing her shoulder lightly. She chuckles between heavy breaths. "Does your back hurt?"

"Not yet," she shrugs, "But it will soon." She stops and squirms a little, pulling her dark blue singlet over her head and examining the torn back. I clear my throat awkwardly and look away; this woman's gotta stop taking off her clothes in front of me before I have a sexuality crisis.

"Yegh." Her fingers curl the wet fabric between them, squeezing out a few droplets of red blood. "Winston's not going to be happy about that." She turns her back to me, gesturing to the three lines. "Tell me how deep they are."

I squint at the injury and hold my breath; I'd never seen a wound like that. It was deep enough that you could see the opposite sides of the flesh and it oozed slowly a clear liquid that diluted the blood and gave it an oily looking texture. My stomach heaves up into my throat and I choke back a nasty mouthful of puke.

"That bad?" Her lips purse together in annoyance, throwing the tattered shirt up onto the ledge we were headed towards. "I'm so tired of stitches, Sam. They itch."

"They itch," I repeat incredulously, rolling my eyes and continuing up the stairs. "That guy was gonna kill you, you know."

"Yes, he would have tried."

I stop abruptly and turn back to her, mounting my hands on my hips; I'm sick of this nonchalant talk about her death like we were planning what's for dinner tonight. It moves me to anger, honestly.

"You had a gun to your head. You were a second away from dying!"

"And you saved my life," she says coolly, taking my arm in her grasp and pressing on ahead of me. My face heats under the weight of her words. I saved her life. I saved Lara Croft's life. Like twenty minutes ago. Holy shit.

"Are you coming?" She's already at the top of the staircase when I come back to my senses.

"Hey!" I call out as I run up to meet her. "I legit save your ass back there!" I'm excited by the idea of it. In the two days I've known her I've done more important shit than I have in my entire life. "That means you owe me a boon, right?" I clap my hands together and stand close.

Lara seems mildly amused by my words. "A boon?"

"What? You seem old fashioned. Come on!"

"Alright," she concedes with a broad smile, unsheathing her knife from her thigh. I flinch back when she tosses it, catching the blade and holding the handle out at me. I give her a quizzical look.

"Boons are traditionally sealed with mutual blood." She reaches behind her back, winces and pulls back, ruby decorating her index digit.

"O-Oh." I glare down at the silver blade and open my palm, spreading my fingers outward. "Seriously? We're doing this? I was just kidding."

Her long, bruised fingers reach out in my direction. "I keep my promises, Sam. You saved me, and now I'm in your debt. And I'm not such a fan of being unmentionably indebted. So let's officiate."

I nod nervously; she has a habit of getting suddenly intense. The tip is so sharp I only need to let the weight of the weapon sit on the center of my palm to break the skin.

I pull it away so quickly I almost drop it on my foot.

"Okay…," my voice quivers. She takes my hand firmly in hers with no fear. The contact sends a shock of electricity through me, rocking through my arm and into my chest, making my heart sputter.

"Thank you," she says quietly.

I didn't know what to say. What was I meant to do? Had I just stood there and watched her get shot in the head, I feel like I would've gone crazy; just the thought of what would have happened if I'd spent one more second staring at that guy's corpse, or trying to figure out how to fire the machine gun…She would have been dead before I got there, and then what?

"I…Do I decide what the boon is now?"

"You can wait, until a situation arises."

"Wait," I reply, rubbing the back of my neck. "I think I know what I want already."

"And?"

I hesitate, gazing at your locked hands between us; why couldn't I have known you before? I'm nervous, but it feels so uncomfortable to be so. Like it's unnatural for us to be so far separated.

"I want," I start, an anxious lump building in my throat. "To come with you. Wherever you're going next, take me with you."

She stares at me, deadpan, for a good five seconds before she speaks, not sounding all that amused or agreeable.

"I cannot do that."

"Lara." Her name rolls off my tongue so easily. "Please."

"No," she refuses sternly. "You don't understand what you're asking for. I can't."

"Lara!" Again, this time clasping my free hand over our bloodied ones.

"Enough, Sam." She sounds strained then, like she's holding something back or struggles against herself. Her fingers untangle from mine, but I manage to keep us connected stubbornly; I'm not giving in, no matter how overwhelming or actually terrifying this woman is, I never want to leave her. The real world to so distant now, I never want to go back. "You'll die if you come with me. They always do. You can't ask me for that." Her hand is shaking inside of mine.

"I won't. I promise, I'll listen to you, I'll stay close, okay? Please." She doesn't falter, at least not in the right direction, and so frightful anger floods me. "You have to. That's the point of a boon, isn't it? You have to!"

She's silent for a long time. Her shaking stops, and the cracks in her composure slowly vanish, and I think for a moment that I've won. But her hand tugs from mine in a swift, fluid motion and she turns her back to me.

"You may stay one more night," she says coldly. "I can't offer you anything else. I will do your interview, and the boon will be fulfilled."

My heart feels like it's being ripped apart, but I don't have the confidence or the willpower to confront her again. The rest of our ascent is spent with at least ten steps between us and she doesn't once turn to see if I'm still behind her.

I spend the rest of the afternoon alone, wandering the manor aimlessly and hoping I'd get so lost no one would ever find me. After we'd surfaced, Lara made some bullshit excuse and left me, heading off towards one of the mansion's dozen libraries no doubt. I cross my arms over my chest and shiver, leaning against the opposite wall. Too much has already happened today, too much.

I itch at the small cut in the center of my palm and sigh sharply. Idiot. I really thought I had a chance. Where was she going next? Maybe she'd try to make the window for Shangri-La still?

My lower lips quivers. The whole plan was to force her to take me, because if she left for Shangri-La she would never come back; she's like a caged tiger here, pacing her prison back and forth, back and forth…she didn't seem happy here at all, even through her stone façade I can sense her restlessness. She said she might find peace in Shangri-La…is that what she's searching for?

"Hey!" Someone calls out for me and I stop to turn. At the end of the hall, Alex waves his hand to get my attention. "I thought you got caught in that weird explosion! Are you okay?"

"Oh, yeah. I'm alright. Lara and I got hit but we're okay."

"Huh, Lara?" He cleared his throat. "Are we allowed to call her that?"

"I am," I snicker half-heartedly. "Guess rescuing the woman from a bunch of mercenaries is worth that much."

His eyebrows rocket up into his hairline. "Mercenaries? What are you talking about?"

"You, uhm," I gesture dismissively. "You should probably get out of here, Alex. This woman has some pretty serious enemies and she doesn't seem particularly interested with talking to us." There's a bitter edge to my tone that he couldn't have missed.

"But the interview, Sam it was so important to you." He touches my shoulder lightly, maybe trying for comfort.

"It's okay," I smile at him deceptively, putting on my best face. "She said she'll help me. But this is…something I have to do on my own, I think."

I send him off about an hour later; we give our goodbyes and I tell him to take the van back with him, that I'll find another way home. He seems skeptical, but he doesn't question me. I keep the Alexa+ with me, just in case; it's lighter and smaller than the DX, and it'll be enough to get what I need.

_But that's not what I need anymore._

I shake my head and clutch the bag strap tightly.

Zip finds me in the foyer later after the sun goes down and I've had a good long time to stew in my own angst.

"Hey, you alright?" He comes in behind me with three plates of food stacked along his thick arms. "That was some afternoon, huh?"

"Yeah, no kidding," I say humorlessly. "That happen a lot around here?"

"More than it should." He sets a plate down on the coffee table in front of me; it's some kind of pretty rice and fish recipe, with a mound of pilaf below and baked chunks of salmon on top, decorated with a white sauce and garnished. I smile at the dish tiredly.

"Thank you."

"You seen Lara around? Her food's gonna get cold."

"No, not since earlier." I keep my eyes away from him as I answer. Something clicks in my head. "Wait, she didn't leave? What about Shangri-La? I thought she had to go today."

"Must have had a change in plans. She doesn't like to leave untied ends. She's probably getting ready to go after Vymes." He sits next to me, placing the other two dishes down like a 'clack', and begins eating.

We sit silently for a bit, before I have the urge to talk again; I wanted to know more about her, even if she'd brushed me off so coldly before.

"She's stubborn," I mutter, sweeping my hair out of my face.

"Tell me about it. It's like pulling teeth just getting her to take her rappelling equipment on mountain sides. Her freeclimbing style makes me motion sick."

"How long have you worked for her?"

"Been about eight years now."

"Really?" That's surprising; I guess that's why they seem more like friends than co-workers.

"Yeah, I mean, I started off as an IT guy, you know, handling electrical equipment and rigging her gadgets. She knew my Ma from the Endurance crew, Josilin Reyes, so she gave me the job right off the bat."

"And you're okay working with all this craziness?"

"Hey, I'm in it for the thrill. And after working solo with someone for so long, you bond and all that junk. I've lived in this place for four years now. If we wanted to do our jobs completely separate, it would be easy."

"And has she always been…?"

"Intense? Stubborn? Strong –headed?"

"Yeah."

"Always."

"How do you get through to her?"

"With time. You gotta understand that she's basically lost everyone. It started with Yamatai, but it didn't end there; she made enemies without realizing it, and when she took jobs from shady people and refused to fulfill them, she was put on a lot of powerful people's shit lists. She's lost family, friends, practically everybody who dared get too close. So she doesn't let a lot of people in anymore. To protect them."

So she's trying to protect me?

"She tried firing me a couple years ago, when things went really sour with a woman named Natla, but I refused. Sometimes you just gotta stand your ground, no matter how fucking terrifying she is when she's upset. She thinks she's a curse or something, which is partway true. If you want to stick around you have to understand that just being with her is a risk."

"Stand your ground, huh?" I start working on my food at an eager pace; talking with Zip had been a spirit lifter when I needed one. "I'm willing to take that risk."

"Huh?"

"Thanks Zip," I say quickly, wiping my mouth with the corner of my sleeve and standing, ready to confront Lara. He glances up at me quizzically.

"Uh oh. What are you thinking of?"

"I'm gonna go tame the tiger," I wink, newfound energy and confidence giving me a boost. I make my way across the foyer; I'm sure with a little searching I'll find her around here somewhere.

_A/N: Sorry but I've always thought Zip and Reyes looked suspiciously alike. _


	8. Chapter 8

It takes two hours and some serious mental mapping, but eventually I find Lara in the sixth library on the East end of the manor, contained in a circle of tomes and manuscripts. Unfortunately, my confidence is for naught because she isn't conscious enough to see it.

I cross to the opposite side of the mahogany table and kneel down, resting my chin on the edge and peering across to get a look at her face. Her head is buried in her crossed arms on the desk and her breathing is slow and even, hair splayed messily over the wood surface.

"Lara?" I whisper. Sleeping in a chair like that couldn't be good for her back, especially considering she had two fifteen pound weights attached to her chest. I wonder if they're real or not, though I really can't imagine someone like Ms. Croft having any interest on having boobs that hindering. "Hey, wake up."

She stirs vaguely and her eyes flutter, but she only groans and slips back into sleep. I make an impatient noise and reach to flatten my hand against her back, and even as I'm doing it I realize what a mistake I've made.

She's on her feet before I have time to blink and the crook between her thumb and index finger slams into my throat so hard my larynx closes immediately. My back is thrown into a bookcase by her sudden momentum.

She raises a switchblade to my neck and just as she's about to make the slice her eyes unglaze and she regains clarity. Her angry snarl drops.

"Sam!" she exclaims, taking her hand from my throat. I wheeze and sputter, struggling to stay on my feet as air rushes through my bruised trachea. "Oh god, are you alright? You really shouldn't sneak up on me, it's dangerous."

I cough around my new injury and clutch her shoulder for support; she takes my arm gently and helps me to the chair she'd been asleep in just a second ago. After a few minutes of learning how to breathe again, she speaks.

"I thought perhaps you'd leave," she pondered quietly. "After that whole ordeal."

"No," I swallow. "I sent Alex home, but I'm still here. Zip made dinner, you should come eat something…" Both she and I knew that wasn't what I wanted to say, but she rubs her right eye tiredly and gives me that cryptic smile nonetheless.

"It's crazy how used to this stuff you two are. I mean, your house exploded earlier and Zip just shrugged and was like, 'Yup, happens all the time. Have this five star dinner.' "

She chuckles, and it warms me, relieving some of my building anxiety. "I…uhm…I wanted to ask you to reconsider your decision about my request."

Her smile drops in a heartbeat. "Sam-"

"I know, I know. Just let me talk, okay? Let me talk, then you can tell me 'no' again."

She pauses and sighs, crossing her arms over her chest. "Alright."

Good. That's farther than I thought I'd get. "You're trying to protect me, right?"

Her eyes flicker, widening just for a passing moment.

"That's why you're being so stern about this. I get it. Trust me, I know what it's like to lose the people you care about. I mean, I've never had anyone die in my arms or anything like that, but I did have parents that just got sick of having a kid. Parents that just threw me away to boarding school in another country when I became too much for them to handle. And I know I can't even begin to touch the pain and suffering you've had to go through over the years, but…" I hesitate before continuing, mouth open and trembling with anticipation.

"I feel so alive when I'm with you. I feel like I matter to the whole world, I feel important and special and, and ready to take on anything! And when you had that gun to your head, I thought I would fall over dead myself. I felt like I…I felt like there was nothing that I wouldn't have given to see you live through that next moment…" My face heats up; this is sounding a lot like a love confession or something, and when I look up to meet her gaze her cheeks are flushed and her sharp eyes are soft. Her lips peel apart slightly.

"What are you saying, Samantha?" Her voice is still so impossible to read, but I press on.

"I'm saying I don't want to leave you, Lara." I stand up slowly in front of her, stepping in close; she inhales sharply and matches my gait backwards. For a second she looks genuinely off-put, and I guess that hurts pretty bad but I keep at it anyway.

"Enough. That's enough," she urges between gritted teeth.

"No. Stop, you don't get to say that to me." I step into her space again, and again she backs off. "I know you feel it too, right? That's why you're trying to protect me." It's a presumptuous thing to say. She glowers at me the same way a trapped tiger would glower at a hunter.

Her heel touches the wall at her back, and she freezes up stiff, giving me her best 'back off' glare. It sends a rocking shiver through my spine. "Please, Lara," I beckon lowly, trying to seem as non-threatening as possible.

It doesn't work.

Something in her must have set her off then, maybe it was the lack of escape or my wildly presumptuous tone, but her eyes snap open and her pupils shrink down to pinholes and she grabs me, like really grabs me hard around the shoulders and shoves me back. I hit the ground unceremoniously, thumping down on my ass and hitting the back of my head against the floor; I'm glad for the carpet because otherwise I'd have seriously broken something.

She mounts me effortlessly, straddling my waist with thighs that could probably choke out a full grown bear and rips the knife from her side. She brings the point of it down to my neck gracelessly, stopping just a half-inch from its target. She's shaking, I can see it in the blade and in her lips and in her eyes.

"Leave me be!" she shouts. "If you want to die so badly I could save you the speech and just finish it here!"

I should be afraid. Two days ago, when she flashed the weapon at me with a smirk and a high air of untouchable confidence, I was pissing myself. But now…those stone cold eyes are glassy and those strong, steady hands are quivering with conflict and anger and something else. And I'm not afraid. I'm hurting. I ache for her sorrow and my chest tightens at the sight of her so wounded.

She's bent over me, her face directly over my own, and so I reach between her stiff arms and touch the corners of her jaw as lightly as I can, trailing them up over her pronounced cheekbones and skimming her delicate ears. She looks absolutely shocked at my motions; the knife tip doesn't withdraw.

"It's okay," I mutter, unsure of how to communicate with her in this state of mind.

"What?" Her eyes are welling up and her features are twisted; I run my fingertips into her bangs and stroke a scar on her cheek lightly with my thumb.

"I'm not afraid of you, Lara."

She makes a choked sound and throws the knife away, covering her face with her hands and digging her fingernails deep into her scalp.

"How are you doing this," she grits, barking a hard, cracked laugh. I keep my hands on her cheeks as she begins to break down. "How are you doing this to me?"

I don't see the rest coming, not by a long shot. She grabs the back of my head, tangling her fingers into a fist in my short black hair, she kisses me with bruising force. I lose all of my breath right then, all of my brain just shuts the fuck off. I grab at her desperately as her dagger tongue sweeps between my lips, wiggling between my teeth and diving inside, sweeping fast strokes over my own. I gasp raggedly, unable to catch my breath, and circle my hand to grip the back of her head.

She pulls me forcefully upwards and I prop myself up onto my outstretch arm. I'm kissing her right now. It's all I can think. I'm fucking kissing her right now and I never even knew I needed or wanted this but it's everything, it's the only thing that matters. I can feel the seam of her shorts against my bare abdomen where my shirt had ridden up, and can feel her struggling for air with the same uncontrollable desperation as me. I wrap my free arm around her back and scratch her down the bend of her spine and she lets out this sexy, edged _groan_ that goes right to my lap.

Her lips are so unbelievably soft, and her chin and cheeks are smooth, hairless. The lack of uncomfortable friction eggs me further, sending my wandering hand under the tight fabric of her shirt and up. Miles of steel muscle tightens and pulses under my touch as she reacts in time with me. Before I reach my intended destination though she rips her mouth from mine, biting my lower lip and licking a wet line over the side of my neck.

Now having her tongue in my mouth was definitely something. But feeling it wander, having it curl and flick and lavish one of the most sensitive parts of my body like that, instantly drives me to incoherent moans. Jesus, she's not even doing anything particularly dirty and she's get me on my edge. I want to beg her to do more.

She pulls back and kisses me again with that same crippling force, but it's too quick and too soon over; her head leans against the crook of my neck and she breathes unevenly into my collarbone. I squeeze the back of her neck and try to clear that warm, humid fog from my mind.

"Take me with you," I whisper between shaky inhales.

She bites her nails into my back, maybe a last-ditch effort to fight me off.

"You'll get hurt," she mutters weakly. I have to admit that have this sort of effect on someone like Lara is quite the ego-booster.

"You want me to come, I know it." Her hot breath blows against my shoulder in response.

"This isn't about what I want." My heart jumps into my throat.

"Take me with you," I breathe again. I know I'm breaking her. She's quiet for a handful of heartbeats. I say her name like it's given me air, like I can't live without it, and she actually shivers against me. Again, my ego soars.

"You…" she begins, clearing her throat gently and wiping her face with the foot of her palm. "You'll have to follow me instructions exactly."

I can feel my features beam. "Alright!" I say excitedly, slapping my hands together.

"And if I tell you to stay somewhere or hide, there won't be any arguing."

"I'll be the most obedient and loyal partner you could ask for," I grin, giddy and beside myself. I can't believe I managed to convince her. She still looks unsure, so I hold my hand out in the small gap of air between us and stick my pinky out.

"Hey, I promise, okay? Cross my heart."

She looks between my gesture and my eyes before sighing in a resigned way and wrapping her pinky around mine.

"Alright. We had better go get you ready."


	9. Chapter 9

"When do we leave?"

"5 am, Samantha. I suggest you get some sleep."

"It's Sam, Lara. Stop calling me 'Samantha'. It sounds like you're mad at me or something."

"Sam. Please get some rest."

"I'm too wound up. I can't."

The woman on the opposite side of the bed groans and turns onto her stomach, tucking her arms under her pillow. The three scratches on the planes of her shoulder blades show like trophies to the endeavor we'd faced. "Why did you insist on sharing a room, again? This manor has 52 bed chambers."

"Yeah, and 51 of them are creepy and dusty as hell. How come you don't have someone for that?"

"Hush, Sam."

I grumble to myself and toss over to face the window in the east corner. Moonlight is streaming in through the silken curtains and focusing beams of dim light onto the spruce green carpet. I could feel her breathing from the five feet of plush mattress and sheets between us; the bed's far big enough to give us both personal space. Not that it was exceptionally important to me. In fact, if she suddenly decided that the only way to keep us warm was naked body heat I'd be all over the idea.

But alas, I'm over here and she's over there and I can't get a wink of sleep to save my life.

I creep and little closer and turn to face her bare back. "So, who's this 'Vymes' guy anyways?"

She doesn't answer.

"Lara?" My fingers prod at her shoulder. One hazel eye snaps open in an irritated way.

"What."

"Who's this guy you keep talking about? The guy you think sent those decked-out men earlier?"

"Last time I met with him he was a power-hungry mogul with a Romanesque antiquity fascination. Now, who knows." She props her tired head up on her palm to address me. "I have my hunches on what I am to come face to face with tomorrow."

"We," I point out. "What WE are."

She mutters something under her breathe and turns away from me. The wounds are looking a little bit angry, I notice.

"Do they hurt?" I ask after some moments of silence. She pauses before replying.

"A bit." A simple answer, but the fact that she would admit it to me says a lot. I inch closer still, reach my arm to full length, and sweep my fingertips across the raised flesh delicately. Her muscles go tense under my touch, but she doesn't move away or tell me to stop. It's enough of an excuse for me to continue my striations. Beyond the red, recently stitched lines are labyrinths of old scars and new scars, long and thin and shiny against the matte of her unharmed skin; closer still I move, tracing them slowly.

"Sam," she says in a restrained way.

"I feel like I know you." The words confuse even me as they pass my lips. Her body goes rigid, but I dismiss it and keep talking; maybe if I keep talking it'll work itself out.

"Or, like, I feel like I'm supposed to know you. You know how, once you've seen someone once, you never really forget them? Even if you just walk by them on the street or pass them in a car, you can still have dreams about them and remember them at random times. That's how I think when I look at you. Like I saw you somewhere once, and now I can't forget it."

Her shoulders stiffen up to rocks and she breathes raspily into her pillow. Quickly I pull my hand away, sure that her pain was caused by my exploring fingers. She whispers something and I lean in to hear it.

"It has to be this way."

My eyes and nose scrunch with confusion. "What?" I question, sitting up quickly. She goes quiet again.

"Hey," I bark, straddling her waist between my outstretched arms and peering over her to see her face. She covers her eyes and mouth with a bent elbow and stays silent.

"What are you talking about? Lara?" Why did she say that? What had to be this way? She doesn't respond and it's frustrating enough to push the boundaries I knew she'd erected. Without a warning, I sweep my fingertips over her bare, rippled abdomen. Her breathing stops.

"You kissed me," I mutter, drawing tight circles just below her navel. "Tell me why."

I'm taking 'playing with fire' to a whole new level with this one, but I can't help myself. She confused me, she intrigued me, she was basically the most interesting and worldly and intimidating person on the planet, a walking monument to feminine pride and strength, and I needed to know what she was thinking.

Two of my digits hook into the waistband of the only item of clothing she'd climbed into bed with, a pair of navy blue low rise panties. She has enough right then, planting a hand on my shoulder with a commanding glare.

"Why did you kiss me, Lara?" I push farther. That hadn't been a pity kiss, or a 'fine if you want' kiss. That was…like, a scary passionate kiss that almost always led to something else. That kind of locked, hot dance. "You felt it, too, didn't you? That weird feeling I've had since I got here. Tell me!"

She shakes her head and clenches her eyes shut. I pull on her shoulder to tip her onto her back, seized with confidence-granting curiosity, and mount her hips between my thighs. She could have easily removed me, but she didn't; instead, she stays obediently, though still defiantly silent, under me.

I can't resist drinking in the view I get from my motions, her topless form and splaying tresses calling for my attention greedily. My fingers begin wandering again; her eyes remain firmly away from mine, but her hands twitch against my hips in a horridly conflicted way.

"Sam," she whispers raspily. The conflict in her cracked voice sends tickles of unexpected pleasure rattling over my spine. I settle against her waist and the light nightshirt she'd lent me rides over my thighs; the only thing separating her immaculately sculpted abs from my bare skin are my rather flirtatious choice of underwear, lacy and black. The pressure gives me an immediate head rush.

"Stop," she mutters, as if helpless. "We can't do this."

"Why?" I grind against her lightly to illustrate my point. "You can't tell me you don't want this. Not after that kiss." She bites into another halting gasp when my hands creep up to squeezes her breasts tightly.

She mutters that word again, a few times, stop, stop, but her body reacts to me like a recognized lover. I rock against her mercilessly, knowing I'm breaking down her resolve, however I couldn't understand it. Was it her life of solitude that kept her from making a move? She's responding as if she was controlled by a resistance and a hunger at the same time.

I'm caught off-guard when she sits up under me, hooks her nails into the small of my back, and sinks her tongue between my lips with a fervor that would rival anything I'd experienced before. I grapple at her bare skin desperately as she grabs my ass hard and flips us without effort.

"Sam," she mutters, licking a wet line over my throat. Her hands move over me like they'd done it before, like they knew me, and her motions are halting and conflicted and repressed.

Her thigh slots forcefully between my legs and my eyes roll back. Shit, she was good at this. Really, really good.

Lara. God, I think I love you. Can that happen so fast? Why should I love her? It was instinctual, it was impossible to hide or to debate. I've never loved, or wanted, another woman before and yet, I needed her, here, now, forever. I needed to be able to touch her and to see her and to know that she's there.

"I'm sorry," she snarls through her own euphoria, blinking down at me with half-lidded eyes. She thinks she's cursed. She thinks that if we do this, I'll be dead before this mission is over. Carefully, I lay my palms over her jawline and pull her down, and this kiss is slow, long, warm. I tease her lips apart and linger there, stealing her breath away, convincing her that everything would be alright.

Lara Croft. Her grip tightens around me. Her mouth travels and leaves a trail of restrained, pink bites over my throat and her hands finally restart their traveling. They work up into the nightshirt, pinching and caressing and just everything I could beg her to do, everything I'd been craving; she's practiced, precise. She knows trigger areas, sensitive spots, she knows how to gut reactions out of me. And here, in this tangle of silk sheets and fine cotton and her, just her, I'm happy for the first time in a long time.

My body is singing with butterflies and white hot sensation when a high pitch shriek breaks me from my focus. It chirps loudly once, then twice, then three times, and just as her head is crawling between my legs and her tongue brushes against me, a low voice soaks into my brain.

Sam.

I snap my eyes open, and look down between my breasts at the woman spreading my knees farther apart. How did she-?

More angry chirps. I cover my ears with the flats of my palms and groan. "Lara, what the hell is that?"

She doesn't move. It doesn't even feel like she's breathing down there. "Uhm, hello?" I sit up , lifting her head to get a look at her. Except she's not Lara anymore.

She's a giant, beeping alarm clock.

I start awake like I'd just been electrocuted and my forehead makes contact with a brick wall.

"Fuck!" I shout, recoiling back into the sheets with my hands over my face. When I've cleared the pain tears out of my eyes and peer between my fingers to investigate what I'd hit, Lara's there, bent over in a similar position.

"Damn it, Sam," she hisses, dabbing a cut on her eyebrow with hesitant digits. My skull must have reopened one of her facial cuts from yesterday.

"Sorry," I resign, massaging my new sore spot with a tinge of disappointment. "Weird dream."

Weird. That was a flat out lie. Of course she had to wake me up right when it was getting to the good part.

Was that really imaginary? My dreams are never that vivid…

I rub my head and look around the bedroom, dark and cool. The sun still hadn't risen. I pout, and sniff the night air.

"What's that smell?"

She quirk her brow at me and throws over my clothes. "5 am."

The plane isn't so much a plane as it is a flying deathtrap. Apparently, even with her 'vast network of connections', as she called it, she still couldn't hail a proper flight on a whim, and so she had to resort to calling in a long overdue favor.

The drive to the runway is quiet, and I manage to get a couple more minutes of shut-eye while trying to force a continuous line of dream. Unfortunately, all I could get was that last frame of imagery, pulling Lara's face up and seeing a goofy looking alarm clock with big, glowing numbers and a series of protruding buttons on top. Jesus.

She taps me awake with a little more care when we arrive, keeping her own head out of impact range. "We're here, Sam. Come on."

I shake the sleep out of my eyes and take the hand she offers me, lifting myself out of the Jeep and stretching. The sky was alight with a pretty brilliant sunrise, decorating the grassy landscape with reflective oranges and yellows.

I look around, blinking my brain awake. I see only one machine, at the start of the concrete drag. It's looks like one of those planes that dumps chemicals on crops, whatever those are called. My stomach ties itself in a knot just by the sight of the rickety looking thing. Right by its tail, a tall looking man is waving us over.

"Shelia!" he calls to us. Lara smiles broadly and straps her bags to her shoulders, making her way to him with open arms.

"Hello, Wally," she says happily. They lock into a tight embrace and he gives her a strong pat on the back.

"Crikey, girl!" Australian, really Australian. He's got a blonde mustache and a red baseball cap hiding what looked like it could be a military cut and he is touching Lara and I already don't like him too much. He hooks a finger under her chin to get a good look at her banged up complexion. "You been wrestling bears again?"

"Vymes' men," she smirks in a pleased way. "They thought they could get a run at me, but I got lucky." She turns to me then and we lock eyes; her gaze is softer than I think I've ever seen it. "Thanks to this one."

"This one," I point confidently at myself, "saved that one," I point to her, who snorts, "from imminent doom, if you could believe it."

"Ah, it's about time she's gotten herself a proper guardian," he retorts with a grin. "Can't leave 'er alone two seconds without some catastrophe strikin'. I'm Wally, one of Lara's old mates."

"Sam. One of Lara's not-so-old mates." His handshake is firm and tight.

"Alright, alright," she waves dismissively at us. "Let's get this show on the road."

"As ye wish!" He climbs into the cockpit and opens a sliding compartment on the side of the craft, presumably where one would shove toxic barrels of Agent Orange.

"Have you ever flown before?" The question seems pretty redundant, since equating flying on a jumbo jet in first class couldn't really be a comparison to this. She props her hands against the rim of the compartment and lifts herself up into it.

"W-Wait!" I call at her, flabbergasted. "We're riding in there?" It was an opening maybe 3 feet by 2 feet and I had no idea what the space on the inside was like.

"You're more than welcome to take the Jeep back to the manor if you'd prefer." She gives me a cheeky smirk and I perch my hands against my hips in response. "Yeah, right. Nice try."

"Suit yourself," she shrugs. "Put this on and strap it on tight." She tosses me one of her bags; I just narrowly manage to catch it.

"What's in here?" Supplies? Maps? Other archeology-related stuff?

"A parachute."

"Oh." It takes three whole seconds of silence between us for my brain to click into place. "Wait, what?! We're jumping out of this thing?!"

"No doubt Vymes has his own security and has taken my advance into account. He'll be on the lookout for activity." She buckles the straps between her thighs tightly, her choice outfit is a tight bodysuit, stark black with red accents, that hugged every curve and muscles she had like a second skin. It made my heart race irresponsibly every time I looked at her. "The area he's settled in is regularly treated with chemicals to control the locust population, so a craft like this could get close without arising suspicion."

"And we're…just gonna…" Just thinking about falling out of the bottom of this thing is giving me some serious anxiety nausea.

"It would be strange for the plane to drop us off on land, and would defeat the purpose of flying in this way."

"Right." I shake my head and gather up all of the nervous energy shaking around in my gut. "Alright, alright." I hold the pack in front of me. "Show me how to use this thing so I don't die?"

She climbs down from the dormouse and approaches me. I really can't believe how tight that catsuit is. Like, how did she even fit her tits in that thing? I don't think that dream had done them justice. She straps the parachute onto my back and shows me how to secure all of the body straps. "Pull this cord for the main chute. Count, alright? Count to six and pull, no sooner, no later. If the red cord doesn't work for some reason, pull the yellow one; that's your emergency chute. Don't pull them both at the same time."

I nod at her and swallow my overwhelming nervousness. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.


End file.
